Presently there is an explosion in the number of telephone numbers required to support the demands on telecommunications systems. This explosion is fueled by pagers, facsimile machines, Internet access, wireless telephones and services and businesses based on and utilizing them. For example, it is not uncommon for an individual to have a wireless phone and associated number, a fax number, at least one home telephone number and a pager with an associated number. And, the average business has a number of lines for voice communication, at least one facsimile line and several lines dedicated for computer usage.
One consequence of this rapidly expanding use of telecommunication systems is an increase in the number of telephone numbers required. In particular, in the United States, the number of area codes in many metropolitan areas is increasing multiple times annually. An increase in corresponding codes in other countries is also prevalent.
Obviously, no telecommunications service provider is advocating a reduction in use of its networks. As a matter of fact, many consumer and other groups are asserting that telecommunications service providers are partly the blame due to hoarding unused numbers, which are typically allocated in large blocks. One proposed solution to curtail the increase in the number of area codes is to reduce the size of the block of numbers allocated to a telecommunications service provider, reducing waste of unused numbers. Though this solution has merit, it ultimately does not address the underlying problem, increased usage of telephone numbers by the public.
In many cases the telephone numbers associated with a communications device, such as a wireless phone or computer access line is never or rarely used for receiving incoming calls. However, a telephone number is associated with such a device. Exploitation of this wasted number provides an opportunity for conserving telephone numbers. The present invention, as described herein exploits the never or rarely used telephone number in providing a method and apparatus for conserving telephone numbers.